Carrie Pressbook

Attention-Getting Herald

'Carrie,' Chilling Suspense Picture of 'Possessed' Young Girl

Laurie Lured Back for "Carrie" Role

Sissy Spacek Runs Emotional Gamut in "Carrie" role

Travolta Kept His Promise In 'Carrie' Picture

Another Big Fire!

DePalma Hailed as Suspense King

Original Newspaper Ads

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Attention-Getting Herald

This is a folded promotional flyer that was offered in the press book. The blank bubble on the bottom of the back was meant for theatres to print their addresses/showtimes.

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'Carrie,' Chilling Suspense Picture of 'Possessed' Young Girl

This one wound up being reprinted in its entirety in numerous newspapers.

With "Carrie," producer Paul Monash and director Brian DePalma have brought to the screen a story of chilling suspense combined with a sensitive portrayal of a "possessed" young girl. Starred are Sissy Spacek, an enormously talented newcomer, and Piper Laurie who returns to the screen after an absence of more than a decade. The United Artists release was filmed from the powerful best-selling novel by Stephen King, adapted for the screen by Lawrence D. Cohen. Texas-born Sissy Spacek has the most demanding and dramatic role of her career, one that would have challenged an actress of far more experience. The title role in "Carrie" was a supreme test of her talent and director Brian DePalma was elated with her performance. Sissy won more acting honors with Cloris Leachman in the television version of Tennessee Williams' "The Migrants," and in the title role of another television movie, "Katherine." After the release of "Carrie" she will be seen in "Welcome to L.A.," also for United Artists. John Travolta as Billy Nolan makes his film debut. The young actor from Englewood, New Jersey, has become a television favorite in the regular role of Vinnie Barbarino on the "Welcome Back, Kotter" series. Before coming to Hollywood, Travolta appeared in the Broadway musicals "Grease" and "Over Here." Piper Laurie was lured back to Hollywood from her Woodstock, New York, home to star with Sissy as her mother, Margaret White. This is Miss Laurie's first theatrical film since her magnificent performance in "The Hustler" with Paul Newman and Jackie Gleason in 1961.

Producer Paul Monash, one of Hollywood's most imaginative creators, acquired the screen rights to "Carrie" after recognizing that it had the ingredients for an exciting motion picture. Monash has won a reputation as a man quick to sense the success potential of story material. He has been the producer of such films as "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid," "The Friends of Eddie Coyle," "Slaughterhouse Five" and the 1975 screen version of the classic American play "The Front Page."

With "Carrie," director Brian DePalma demonstrated why he is hailed as one of this country's finest and most versatile young directors displaying a mastery of the suspense shocker in the best Alfred Hitchcock tradition. DePalma's first nationally released motion picture, "Greetings," had the distinction of winning a Silver Bear Award at the Berlin Festival. Since then his films have included "Hi, Mom," "Sisters," "Phantom of the Paradise" and most recently, "Obsession," starring Cliff Robertson and Genevieve Bujold.

Stephen King, an English teacher in Bridgeton, Maine, made his first literary killing with "Carrie," his first novel. He has already sold a second novel, "Salem's Lot" to Warner Bros.

Another accomplished creative newcomer, Lawrence D. Cohen, was entrusted with writing the "Carrie" screenplay. He launched his film career with David Susskind in New York.

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Laurie Lured Back for "Carrie" Role

Piper Laurie, who turned her back on a lucrative, long-term movie contract because she wanted more demanding and fulfilling roles, has achieved her goal in her first Hollywood film in approximately 15 years. The picture is "Carrie" and the men who brought her back to the scene of her youthful triumphs are Producer Paul Monash and Director Brian DePalma. Piper portrays Margaret White, the fanatically religious mother of Carrie, played by Sissy Spacek. Margaret is an intense, driven woman who not only tries to keep her teenaged daughter ignorant of the facts of life, but tries to instill in the girl a crippling sense of guilt and sin about her developing body and seething emotions. Based on the best-selling novel by Stephen King, "Carrie" was written for the screen by Lawrence D. Cohen. The picture is a Paul Monash production of a Brian De Palma release by United Artists. John Travolta, Amy Irving, William Katt, Nancy Allen, Betty Buckley and P.J. Soles also have leading roles. "Carrie" is Piper Laurie's first theatrical motion picture since her magnificent performance in "The Hustler" with Paul Newman and Jackie Gleason in 1961.

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Sissy Spacek Runs Emotional Gamut in "Carrie" role

Sissy Spacek, an enchanting, petite blond from Quitman, Texas, who packs tremendous talent, runs the gamut of emotions in "Carrie" as a shy high school girl possessed of a terrifying power, but dominated by her frantically religious mother and ridiculed by her classmates. The title role in Lawrence D. Cohen's exciting screen adaption of the Stephen King novel would seem to be one of the most complex portrayals of any year. Yet for Sissy it was a natural. "I identified closely with Carrie thanks to director Brian DePalma. He helped show me how a girl can be made to feel beautiful or plain and shy by the attitude of others," Sissy explained after completing a scene in which she is dragged screaming and kicking into a closet by her co-star Piper Laurie, who portrays her mother in the suspense shocker produced by Paul Monash for United Artists release. "Before shooting started, Brian called me into his office. Gathered there was the cast of actresses who play my classmates. The girls made fun of me, criticized my dress, the way I wore my hair. Nobody would talk with me. I then realized what happened to Carrie, the constant butt of practical jokes, could happen to me. "When Carrie is humiliated once too often she loses control of her emotions and obtains revenge by unleashing the terrible telekinesis power she possesses. I've read books on the subject and I believe that in times of emotional stress it is possible for a person to do fantastic things. In Carrie's case she was able to move objects and to cause changes in objects by force of her mind."

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Travolta Kept His Promise In 'Carrie' Picture

When John Travolta at 16 quit high school in Englewood, New Jersey, he promised his father he's resume his education if he flopped as an actor. Travolta is back in high school, but it's in the leading role of a trouble-making student in United Artists "Carrie," starring him with Sissy Spacek and Piper Laurie. In a few years Travolta has swiftly established himself as a popular young actor and is seen regularly as Vinnie Barbarino in the "Welcome Back Kotter" television series. Upon leaving Englewood High, Travolta earned $50 a week starring in "Bye Bye Birdie" at a small New Jersey summer stock company. The next summer Travolta appeared in numerous stock company productions. In his first trip to Hollywood, Travolta guested in episodes of the "Emergency" and "Owen Marshall" television series. Returning East, he was cast as "Doodie" in the National Company of the 50's rock musical "Grease." After nine months on the road he joined the Broadway company of "Grease." Next he played the role of "Misfit" for eight months in the Broadway musical "Over Here," starring the Andrews Sisters. When "Over Here" closed, Travolta returned to Hollywood for a guest starring appearance in the "Medical Center" series. His big opportunity followed when producer James Komack singed him for "Welcome Back Kotter." During the hiatus period of the comedy series, producer Paul Monash and director Brian DePalma quickly latched onto the high school dropout for the leading role of high school student Billy Nolan in D. Lawrence Cohen's screen adaption of the Stephen King novel.

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Here's a few different variations of the advertisements that ran in newspapers when CARRIE originally played in theatres in 1976/77.